Chicago State University (CSU) is an institution with a predominantly African-American student body. Located on the south-side of Chicago, CSU serves the highest proportion of black students of all public universities in the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa-Wisconsin contiguous four-state region and it is the largest producer of black baccalaureate degree recipients. The CSU SCORE proposal is a response to the NIH initiative to improve significantly the research capabilities of minority and minority-serving institutions as a means to address the need to increase the numbers of minority students entering doctoral programs in the biomedical sciences. The quantitative goals of the CSU SCORE Program are (i) to increase the number of junior faculty engaged in biomedical research, and (ii) to increase the number of biomedical research publications from CSU teaching faculty. The qualitative goal of the Program is to create a research environment at CSU which encourages students to point their career goals to leadership positions in biomedical research. The Program will organize its activities around six faculty-led research projects in biology and chemistry. Three projects (Drs. Erhart, Leitzel and Swier) are continuations of previously-funded research, while three new projects are led by newly-appointed CSU faculty (Drs. Baker, Gana and Shelby): [unreadable] Project 1. Dr. J. Scott Baker - Investigations into Transport Phenomena and Organic Polymer Addition in Clay. [unreadable] Project 2. Dr. Mark Erhart - Evolutionary History of the Mouse t-Complex: A Molecular Genetics Approach. [unreadable] Project 3. Dr. J. Ache Gana - Molecular Analysis of a Cold Acclimation Responsive Gene. [unreadable] Project 4. Dr. John C. Leitzel - Antisense Oligoamides as Antiinfectives. [unreadable] Project 5. Dr. Quinetta Shelby - Palladium-catalyzed Promotion of Silicon-Carbon Bond Scission. [unreadable] Project 6. Dr. Kevin Swier - Induction of lL-12 L from Macrophages by Naive T Cells During Antigen Presentation. [unreadable] [unreadable] These projects will offer CSU science majors exposure to a wide range of research subjects. They will also serve as on-campus research activities for students who participate in the developmental projects of the CSU RISE and BRIDGES to the Baccalaureate Programs. The funding of the Program will accelerate the realization of the institutional goal of becoming a major focal point of opportunities for under-represented minorities in biomedical research in the Chicago metropolitan area. The achievement of the Program goals will, in time, have a significant impact on the number of minority biomedical Ph.D. scientists produced in the Midwest. [unreadable] [unreadable]